The head of an AI-enhanced sex robot is displayed at the Shenzhen Atall Intelligent Robot Technology headquarters. As AI technology becomes more advanced, its use in sex robots is raising concerns about issues of ethics and consent. Photo: EPA-EFE
Opinion
Inside Out
by David Dodwell
Inside Out
by David Dodwell
China-made AI sexbots: the next national security risk for US, EU?
The rapid emergence of AI has sparked concerns about its attendant dangers, and few sectors exemplify that more than the production of sex robots
When the European Union passed its Artificial Intelligence Act in March, its aim was to provide the first comprehensive legal framework intended to “foster trustworthy AI in Europe and beyond, by ensuring that AI systems respect fundamental rights, safety and ethical principles and by addressing risks of very powerful and impactful AI models”.
The act cuts to the heart of the challenges faced in managing the moral and ethical issues embedded in the development of AI. At the top of a four-tier risk pyramid sits those that pose an “unacceptable risk”, which should be expressly prohibited.
This includes the potential for personal harm arising from manipulative, deceptive or subliminal techniques to influence someone to make a decision they would otherwise not have made; exploitation of vulnerabilities because of age, disability or specific socioeconomic status; the use of data to categorise individuals; and harmful development of facial recognition databases.
An article in the Post last week brought such unacceptable risks sharply into focus and identified the kind of development that, if fully achieved, would reflect AI’s assumption of fully human powers. Evan Lee, CEO of Shenzhen’s Starpery Technology, says his company is “developing a next-generation sex doll that can interact vocally and physically with users”.
While Lee acknowledged that technological challenges remain to achieve realistic human interaction, his company’s aim is not just humanoid robots that provide sexual services but robots capable of household chores and providing care for those with disabilities or the aged. The news prompted the Post’s cartoonist to ask whether such robots would also be able to cook.
Sex doll producers in China such as Starpery Technology are enhancing products with artificial intelligence for an advanced user experience. Photo: Instagram/starperydollofficial
Even the most basic thought experiment makes it clear that Starpery’s ambitions – and those of its competitors – cannot be fully achieved without such robots acquiring fundamentally human capabilities that will run into the EU’s “unacceptable risk” category.
As an important hub of the US$35 billion global sex toys industry, China is likely to find itself at the heart of the physical and ethical challenges that come with the rise in use of AI in a wide variety of industries.
And given the US’ paranoid imaginativeness on what counts as a national security risk, I am sure there is someone in the Pentagon ready to explain why AI-empowered sex dolls threaten national security.
The production of sex robots remains a comparatively small portion of the global sex toy industry, in which vibrators account for 54 per cent of revenue generated. The sex toy review site Bedbible estimates that sex robots make up about 0.5 per cent of the US$37 billion industry. The site puts the average price of sex robots sold in 2022 at US$3,567, a sharp fall from US$24,000 in 2010.
A report in The Guardian in January on the sex robot industry questions the pace of the sector’s projected rise and says simple logistics will impose limits beyond the overall creepiness of buying or owning a sex robot. It quotes author Rob Brooks as saying, “They’re big, they’re clunky, they’re embarrassing if they’re sitting on the sofa when your friends come over. You need a massive closet, both literally and figuratively, if you’re going to have one.”
01:19
Sex dolls ‘married off’ in bizarre cult ritual outside Myanmar’s holiest Buddhist shrine
Sex dolls ‘married off’ in bizarre cult ritual outside Myanmar’s holiest Buddhist shrine
Lee lends further weight to this scepticism in the Post article, highlighting the significant challenges of batteries and artificial muscles. Just as manufacturers such as BYD and Tesla are struggling to shrink batteries, sexbot manufacturers are finding that humanoid robots lack space for large batteries and current engines lack the flexibility of human muscles.
Another factor holding back the sector is cost. Starpery prices its dolls at around US$1,500, while an advanced Harmony doll produced by Abyss Creations in the United States starts at US$6,000. Humanoid robots from Dalian-based Ex-Robots can cost as much as US$276,000.
But even if sex robots remain a marginal part of the industry and progress is slow, this new technological era appears to be here to stay. Kate Devlin, an AI researcher at King’s College London, says that sex with robots is “about the future, both near and distant: science fiction utopias and dystopias, loneliness and companionship, law and ethics, privacy and community. Most of all, it’s about being human in a world of machines.”
It is clear that sex robots are nowhere near being plausible companions. But as technologies improve and the nuanced behaviour intrinsic to romance and sex become more technologically feasible, the distinguishing boundaries between humans and humanoids will become harder to discern. It is clear they will come up against the EU’s “unacceptable risk” frontiers sooner or later.
02:12
Inside a Chinese factory that makes humanoid robots with enhanced facial movements
Inside a Chinese factory that makes humanoid robots with enhanced facial movements
Ethical considerations also have yet to be fully addressed. There is the potential for sex robots to enable their owners to act out socially questionable fantasies, though that is not that different from concerns over the use of pornography or abuse of sex workers.
Perhaps the most ethically problematic aspect is the issue of consent. The act of consent is exclusively human, and by definition a humanoid robot has no more capacity to grant consent than is programmed into the algorithms that drive it.
Orly Lobel, author and professor of law at the University of San Diego, writes that the continuing debates around sex robots are complex, nuanced and uncomfortable. “Until a robot is truly autonomous in its decision-making, it cannot truly grant consent.”
And these debates will also not be framed exclusively by the EU’s AI Act, no matter how well meaning the effort.
David Dodwell is CEO of the trade policy and international relations consultancy Strategic Access, focused on developments and challenges facing the Asia-Pacific
